Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to content sharing over the global Internet and more particularly to content commenting in a topical thread of shared content over the global Internet.
Description of the Related Art
Social media provides a natural platform upon which members of the public may share thoughts and ideas with respect to an unlimited number of topics. The platform of social media essentially allows two forms of content sharing—static sharing and dynamic sharing. Static sharing of content refers to content postings by one individual stored in one or more servers and indexed for viewing by other individuals from over the global Internet. In comparison, dynamic sharing of content refers to content postings by one individual stored in one or more servers and indexed for viewing and editing by other individuals from over the global Internet. Thus, the difference between static content sharing and dynamic content sharing is that in the latter instance, an unpredictable number of unknown individuals may attempt to contribute additions or modifications to posted content.
Static content sharing provides a capable mechanism through which product documentation for a product can be structured and distributed. In particular, unlike conventional printed documentation for a product, static content sharing provides a way to distribute electronically to any number of end users a most recent documentation of a product in a way that is readily accessible and even searchable to the end user. Dynamic content sharing provides an even better mechanism through which product documentation for a product can be structure and distributed in as much as the static content provided by the product manufacturer can be supplemented with the on-going commentary of the general public.
Of note, it is desirable to permit different individuals to add commentary to different portions of the product documentation. Typical commentary would include corrections, remarks, questions and answers to questions all pertinent to a topic of an associated portion of the product documentation. As such, commentary supplementing different portions of product documentation is akin to appending a thread of discussion to the different portions of the product documentation.
As it will be recognized, product documentation oftentimes is limited to a particular version of a product. While the product documentation for many different versions of the same product may enjoy the identical or nearly identical content so that the same product documentation may be provided for multiple versions of the product, at some point, the different versions will vary enough to warrant different product documentation—even if much of the content remains similar or identical. In the latter instance, the product documentation for each different version of a product can be distributed as merely hierarchical branches of root product documentation.
Maintaining the product documentation for different versions in separate branches of a hierarchy of documentation for a product can be advantageous in so far as an end user can navigate to the product documentation in general irrespective of any particular version of the product, and then the end user can select to browse the specific product documentation for a corresponding version of the product of choice. Likewise, one providing supplemental content in respect to a portion of product documentation pertaining to one version can do so by navigating the hierarchy of the product documentation to the portion of the product documentation pertaining to the one version. However, to the extent that the portion in which the supplemental content is provided is similar to or identical to another portion of the product documentation for a different version of the product, the other portion will not receive the benefit of the supplemental content.